Orchestra and audience alike were back in a comfort zone for the Brahms Symphony No. 2 after intermission, at least until the sound of a sobbing woman cut through the orchestra in the second movement. Welser-Möst kept conducting but looked out into the audience, no doubt wondering what could possibly be next.

It’s really best to cry pianississimo!

And believe it or not, this sobbing took place at the same May 24 concert I blogged about before, where the concert had to stop and start again.
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Okay, so she is very, very cute. And she sings sweetly, although I could do without kiddo vibrato for some reason. (I’m not sure why, but when young children use vibrato it doesn’t sound right to me.) But she was not “pitch perfect”, which is what is said toward the end.

No, I really don’t watch this show—it’s not even available here—but because someone linked to this I found it. And it is a sweet as can be, and sure, she could make me cry if I weren’t in a “mood” right now.

Call me a curmudgeon. It’s okay.

But anyway, what can you do with a adorable little six year old singing for this kind of show? Can you say, “Well, you are very cute and who knows, you might be a great singer some day, or you might not. You weren’t perfectly in tune, but for your age you were incredibly good” … can you say that? Even the wicked Simon couldn’t. But I still say he’s wrong about “pitch perfect”.

Our son, Jameson, was nearly pitch perfect on the Queen of the Night aria, though, when he was about that age. Really. (Kelsey was singing in the opera, so he heard and saw the video over and over … he could simply nail all those notes. I could kill myself for not taping him. But he’d kill me now if I had!)

And no, I’m really not being a stage mom. I’m picky about pitch. I really am. He was just that good. Honest and true. (I just pretended I wasn’t his mom and I still said, “He was that good.” ;-)

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Of course many of you have heard the sounds on the YouTube link below before, but I’m guessing they are new to some; I know some of my students still struggle with the “modern” sounds of the Hindemith! Many of us who studied oboe in a university setting at least attempted the Berio Sequenza if nothing else. (Yes, I did perform it in college; I look at the work now and wonder how the heck I did it!) If other readers want to hear some of the new techniques you can hear and see Marieke Schut with her oboe and English horn, playing a work by Jonathan Harvey (a composer I’m unfamiliar with, I confess). The video is in Dutch, but the oboe and English horn sounds are in the music language—well, a very contemporary music language—so you can certainly understand that part.

Sort of.

Some of you might wrinkle your noses, but check it out to see (and hear).

… and if anyone wants to translate for me …?

In Other News
The pattyo has been moved to WordPress!. There’s definitely work to be done (finding all of my pages, for one), but we are on the way with that blog, and this one should be next. At least checking that one out will give you an idea of how this one will go … I think.
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I’ve always enjoyed Imani Winds. I have several of their CDs, and if they get back to the Bay Area you can bet I’ll do my best to attend. Now you can hear an NPR segment about them. I especially love the “When Jeffrey Got His Groove Back” portion; this is something I’d love to see and hear. (I suspect, though, that I’d have to go to an elementary school to catch them doing this one.) Clearly the oboist, Toyin Spellman-Diaz, is multi-talented. Oboe AND singing. Sigh.